Hello forum!
I have been asking questions on the forum recently because I am starting a new campaign with friends which while generous in a certain scope, is constraining in others. Specifically, the GM has given us permission for a FIFTY (50!) point build, but in all likelihood no punches will be pulled and difficulty will reflect that 'epic' fantasy level, and the party will only have three members -- so while our characters will be strong, we have a lot of bases to cover. I am very new to the pathfinder system (only a month or two) of actual reading/playing... so while I understand the mechanics, I really don't have experience with potentials or higher level material.
Right now I have two ideas for characters- Take one level of oracle then all the rest levels of bard, and using the lore mystery that switches AC bonus from Dex to CHA, as well as the trance mystery to take 20s on skill checks, and go full skill monkey with that -- buffing my allies and making them tougher... but I'm afraid with only 2 people to screen me I won't be able to keep my performances going and be viable. I am most enamored with this character concept (I was also considering making him a gnome with breadth of experience as a feat) -- but even with a 50 point build I'm scared he will constantly get sacked in combat.
My other concept would be a pure alchemist. I would like to be able to use Mutagens as a safety-net to fight if monsters got close to me (or use it to turn into dragons and giants at higher levels for fighting situations) -- but primarily hang back, throw bombs like a madman, and use my powers to buff up my comrades. I am confident an 'alchie' can be a good skill monkey also, but not sure what traits would complement them... and if an alchemist with 2 other party members is still a good idea, considering such a small party cannot screen for him.
So basically any ideas for point buys for these builds, wisdom associated with these character concepts, a better bard concept than the oracle bard, or even if you think there is a better suggestion for a 3 character party if a bard or alchemist won't do?
Your help is appreciated.
A fifty point build?! That is literally off the scales.. With that much you can buy exactly the stats you want AND more. "Epic" scale fantasy is supposed to be 25 points. Unless he is talking about RACE points for the APG, although that is still a crazy number.
Honestly your biggest issue is going to be the leftover points.
The most simple buy would be 5 16s and a 10 as a dump stat. I can tell you what my players would do though. Change one of those 16s to a 13 to have a stack score, and either use racial to raise it more, or to counter the dump stat.
If you are worried about getting stacked in combat, go Rouge/Red Mantis. A boss at sneak attack and gets some fun spells later in the game.
Has he told you what races you can use, and what are the other two party members?
What are the other 2 playing? With only 3 people, you need as little overlap as possible.
Also, everyone taking leadership wouldn't hurt. :)
I will say Bard is almost certain to be a poor choice. Bards are better the larger the party gets, since his buff hits all of them. Add that they're jacks of all trades w/o much specialties, and... you need some hardcore specialists to cover roles here.
I'd advice 1 melee brute, one arcanist who doubles as "the archer"/artillery, and one divine caster who is the 2ndary melee. Preferably someone can handle skill monkey stuff. Viv. Beastmorph Alchemist is good for this, can do melee and also handle rogue skills if you use traits to gain some class skills.
Ideal arcanist is wizard, for the sheer versatility. Half-Elf Sorc w/ Paragon Surge (or Human sorc w/ Racial Emulation feat to access Paragon Surge) would also work well.
Ideal divine caster is Half-Elf Oracle w/ Eldritch Heritage (arcane bloodline) abusing the hell out of the Paragon Surge spell to spontaneously learn spells.
Paragon Surge is a Half-Elf only spell, level 3, that lets you temporarily gain any one feat you qualify for. Expdanded Arcana is a feat.... I think you see the combo here.
Why does the Oracle want arcane bloodline? First...familiars are awesome. Second... when he can take Improved Eldritch Heritage at level 11, he use Paragon Surge to temporarily pick up this arcane bloodline power and get 1 or more spells known off the sorc/wiz list, effectively giving him access to about 95% of the spells in the entire game:
"New Arcana (Ex): At 9th level, you can add any one spell from the sorcerer/wizard spell list to your list of spells known. This spell must be of a level that you are capable of casting. You can also add one additional spell at 13th level and 17th level."
Just my suggestion for ideal party. Ideal melee person might actually be a synthesist summoner, or a master summoner who uses his summoned monsters as the meat shields and the eidolon as skill monkey.
Whoa... head spinning with all of this.
So... bard is out... I can't argue the logic of bards being better the larger a party is. Thanks for helping there, I'll save what I have on this concept for a larger party adventure.
@derf -- I am not sure I understood your post, but I'll look up what stacked means and synthesize the info. I am not sure what my companions will pick, but I'll know on Saturday and may post here after then.
@Nimon -- thank you for taking a crap in my thread. I had said it does indeed sound generous, but I respect and trust my GM to know what he's doing. Your post helps me exactly nada. I myself have been known to be terse at times, but I at least try to have a point. Work on that, maybe as part of your "personal" build... as it seems you have levels in "expert" -- though expert in exactly what is not appropriate for polite company.
@StreamofSky -- thank you for putting me off the bard track. These are some fascinating options, especially in the context of the entire party. Can you cite any places I can look at a fully fleshed out build of any of these types? I only ask because as stated I am relatively new -- and after constructing two previous aformentioned builds and not using either of them I am feeling a bit burned out. Any pointing to resources that could get me out of reinventing the wheel would be very valuable, though I suppose in the intervening week before the campaign starts I can summon the strength to go back to the drawing board.
While I'm on all that, I'll continue to eye this thread for other ideas and wisdom!
Play a monk. You won't have to worry about one important ability score being too low. Max out strength, dexterity, constrituton, and wisdom. Bang! I mean Blammo!
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Paragon Surge is brand-spankin' new, so not much info for optimizing with it yet. Just use a class optimization guide, except play a half-elf instead of whatever races the guide suggests. Or human w/ Racial Emulation feat.
Sadly, there are no melee/Viv alchemist guides, the only alchemist guide I know of at all is Ogre's, which is mostly APG and some UM tacked on briefly.
Saph on giantitp.com has a great Summoner handbook, but it won't help for making a synthesist. Should hold fairly true for master summoner, though.
Again, before anything else, coordinating w/ the other 2 players is essential. The 3 of you will need to fill as many roles as possible. You need to know what they're playing and they ned to know what you would like to play.
Wow, this is the third post from you I've seen today. Seems a bad board forum day.
@derf -- I am not sure I understood your post, but I'll look up what stacked means and synthesize the info. I am not sure what my companions will pick, but I'll know on Saturday and may post here after then.
In this case when I use stacked I am referring to a build method that my group uses. A Fighter would likely "stack" Str and "dup" Wis, while a Cleric might do the reverse.
It really does depend on what the party composition is when you have 3 people. You might touch base with them and see what they might be playing.
Additionally another question for you, do you know your GM's logic in giving the 50 point build? I could see it as something fun for some one-off arena fights to teach a new player, or when a GM is gone.. but as the basis of a campaign I can't help but think he is crazy, or he wants to guarantee that all characters are good at nearly everything.
RPG Superstar 2013
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If you like the feel of the alchemist, and want to be very flexible, play a master chymyst. You're ability scores allow for a lot of skill points, bonus spells, and huge physical ability scores.If you need melee, you hulk out for fantastic damage. If you need area effects, you have bombs which deal an incredible amount of damage (4-5 attacks for 10d6+20 plus other effects). If you want the Abyssal Eldritch Bloodline, you can be even stronger. I think the build would be exciting, versatile and powerful.
Play a monk. You won't have to worry about one important ability score being too low. Max out strength, dexterity, constrituton, and wisdom. Bang! I mean Blammo!
First thing that popped into my head too..."If not now, when?"
When there's more than 3 PCs and a high point buy. Or never.
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At a 3 man party, I'd definitely be picking something that is caster-capable, which is exactly where you've gone so far. Kudos for understanding the importance of options.
I agree with Steven that a Master Chymist is an appealing option. You get solid utility from your Extracts (Make sure to take Infusion at level 2), great bombs, and good melee. In this matrix, I recommend against Vivisectionist. You can't easily afford to drop the ranged effectiveness of bombs for sneak attack.
If you're interested in a more Divine bent, you might consider the Inquisitor or Cleric. Both will offer quite a bit and, if you so desire, you can easily get animal companions with both (just take the Animal domain and Boon Companion at 5 to bring it up to snuff). Again, lots of versatility here.
Ultimately, what you're looking at is needing to be capable of several roles instead of the role-purity that you see from a Barbarian or Fighter type. Skill points will be at a premium, as will feat slots.
Summoning will be an important balancing factor. If nobody else takes a summon-ready character, consider taking something with easy access to Summon Monster or Summon Nature's Ally. Bonus points if Communal Mount is on the spell list as it is the best battlefield clogger out there. To that end, if you don't have an arcane caster in the party, consider a Wizard. If you tweak your character out, you could easily have an extremely powerful Conjuror.
Alchemist.
The Mindchemist is arguably the best skill man in the game. An elven Alchemist with the Breadth of Experience feat will have capable knowledge scores without ever having to put a point into them. If you do put ranks in them, well, you will know all.
Alchemists can make great Melee combatants or ranged combatants, or do one and switch to the other. With a 50 point buy and the ability to have some crazy high statistics, you will succeed on just about anything. I had a 25 point buy Alchemist I just finished Serpent's Skull with that was like a superhero. I would stay away from Master Chymist, and go straight with Alchemist because the upper level discoveries are boss.
Play a monk. You won't have to worry about one important ability score being too low. Max out strength, dexterity, constrituton, and wisdom. Bang! I mean Blammo!First thing that popped into my head too..."If not now, when?"
I hope you mean a Zen Archer.
Paragon Surge is a Half-Elf only spell, level 3, that lets you temporarily gain any one feat you qualify for. Expdanded Arcana is a feat.... I think you see the combo here.
Why does the Oracle want arcane bloodline? First...familiars are awesome. Second... when he can take Improved Eldritch Heritage at level 11, he use Paragon Surge to temporarily pick up this arcane bloodline power and get 1 or more spells known off the sorc/wiz list, effectively giving him access to about 95% of the spells in the entire game
This combination is amazing.
My other concept would be a pure alchemist.
Have a look for a Beastmorph Vivisectionist Alchemist build.
Dot.
Don't have anyone pick "big dumb fighter" seriously, Fighter class? That would be a waste of the opprotunity. Yes you need one person with full arcane casting and one other person with full divine casting. But that last person? Pick something great that is MAD.
Like Magus, you could afford all the points in CON that you want and let you stay in a fight while dishing out high damage.
Monk/druid or Druid/monk. Kick ass! Half-elf for multi-classing, animal companion for flanking (wolves can trip).
+1 to the Leadership Feat suggestion.
Doesn't a 50 pb fix/address any MAD issues? I'd say yes. Play a monk!
The three of you should get together to build your party. As already stated, you'll need a bruiser, a healer, and a blaster. From there, consider multiclassing or Leadership to fill in what's needed. A 50 point build seems well-suited for Prestige Classes, maybe check those out?
If you have an arcane caster, you don't need an archer.
And such a high point build will let you flesh out some less-than-optimal class/archetype/PrC combos, I would think.
Sounds like fun!
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RPG Superstar 2013
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Wild shape druid in Pathfinder is fan-freaking-tastic. Do that. By 20th level you'll be Gargantuan or Colossal as a swift action, with 2-3 more steps in damage dice (if your gm allows sreps past Colossal). Full-time spellcasting and unstoppable ability scores.
That's the way, uh-huh, uh-huh, I liiike it, uh-huh, uh-huh.
For the blaster/ archer I didn't see it anywhere but arcane archer anyone? You literally get both and having good int, dex, and str, along with decent con shouldn't be hard really, the biggest issue is the 7/10 caster level advancement, and if you take magical knack you can go wizard 8/ fighter 2/ arcane archer 10 while not great personally I love arcane archer that ends up with 16 bab. That gets you 4 attacks along with magical knack that's CL 17 which gets you 9th level spells, sounds good for me but I know it can be better than that.
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Wild shape druid in Pathfinder is fan-freaking-tastic. Do that. By 20th level you'll be Gargantuan or Colossal as a swift action, with 2-3 more steps in damage dice (if your gm allows sreps past Colossal). Full-time spellcasting and unstoppable ability scores.
That's the way, uh-huh, uh-huh, I liiike it, uh-huh, uh-huh.
If you're going that route seriously consider a Saurian Shaman. Overpowered as all heck but it sounds like that would be a good idea for this campaign.
The ability to summon templated dinosaurs as a standard more than compensates for a little loss in flexibility in wild shape.
Level 4 sucks and Level 5 kinda hurts but other than that its win all the way.
Play a monk. You won't have to worry about one important ability score being too low. Max out strength, dexterity, constrituton, and wisdom. Bang! I mean Blammo!First thing that popped into my head too..."If not now, when?"I hope you mean a Zen Archer.
Paragon Surge is a Half-Elf only spell, level 3, that lets you temporarily gain any one feat you qualify for. Expdanded Arcana is a feat.... I think you see the combo here.
Why does the Oracle want arcane bloodline? First...familiars are awesome. Second... when he can take Improved Eldritch Heritage at level 11, he use Paragon Surge to temporarily pick up this arcane bloodline power and get 1 or more spells known off the sorc/wiz list, effectively giving him access to about 95% of the spells in the entire gameThis combination is amazing.
My other concept would be a pure alchemist.Have a look for a Beastmorph Vivisectionist Alchemist build.
By the way Aioran, If I'm not mistaken you gave me advice for a travel/luck cleric I am using in another campaign. I DON'T regret your advice, and my DM for THAT game allowed a guided weapon. Happy as a clam, and so is my party with the re-roll abilities.
Can anybody point me in the direction of a good wild shape druid template/build?
I would look into that. Archers aren't my style, and the saurian shaman -- while COOL AS HECK, could be a little thematically jarring as I don't know how common Dinosaurs are in Andoran (likely where we'll start our adventures) ... something tells me nobody wants to cross the delaware on a diplodocus.
Thanks everybody for being so forthcoming... I have a LOT TO LEARN but one of my favorite things about pathfinder is that it forces you to make choices... even when you are spoiled for resources.
as a sidenote, I'm going to talk to my DM about his logic for the 50 point buy. I suspect that it is one part us being very new to pathfinder and two parts him wanting to throw the kitchen sink at us.
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I'd suggest an evanagelist cleric with the animal domain not only do you get a full power caster you also get a 4th party member which with the boon companion feat is at full druid progression and bard's inspire courage trick with only a slight cost to channeling which can be fixed to a certain extent with an amulet of positive channeling (i think thats what it is called)
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Greetings, fellow traveller.
Your first stop might likely be the Guide to the guides in this forum.
A lot of cool info. If going for a a druid, I'd start with Treantmonk's Guide; it's a little outdated since it's been assembled before APG was out, but the basic info is rock solid and a good starting point.
Next stop would then be Peterrco's Guide.
Ruyan.
I would probably go Oracle of Lore or Heavens in this. You can have lots of skills, Charisma to defenses, and a wide spread of utility, healing and combat magic. Probably I would use human to get extra spells known as a favored class bonus.
I'd make a Monk/Paladin/Champion of Irori. CoI is awesome, but benefits massively from the increased point-buy since they have a use for every stat (Str to hit, Dex for AC, Con for HP, Int for Skill Mastery, Wis for AC, Cha for Smite).
For stats (pre-racial) I'd do:
16
16
14
12
17
16
Your fist point of focus should be, as others have stated, to collaborate with the other 2 players and decide which role/class everyone wants to play. That way you can figure out who is going to fill which role, and build from there. With only 3 people in the party, you don't want to show up to the game and find out your party consists of two rogues and one barbarian!
I'm playing a level 12 witch in Kingmaker right now, it's a pretty powerful (and cool) class. DM had no issue with me taking the "old" age category at starting for +2 mental stats, -3 physical stats. With hexes not taking up spell slots, the Sleep Hex coupled with the feat Accursed Hex feat (and at level 11 Split Hex Feat) can take an enemy melee out of the fight in the first round. Witches also get access to healing, which is one area that it's okay to have a bit of overlap in. (After all, if your cleric gets knocked to -10 hitpoints, someone's going to have to heal HIM!)
I think a pretty sweet party combo would be a druid, a witch and a monk, especially with those starting stats. Druid / witch / fighter would be solid as well, and the fighter has added versatility in that he can still be a viable threat at range. Cleric / wizard / fighter, Oracle / Ranger / Magus, Ninja / Paladin / Druid, all of those would make decent party combinations. Have fun, and remember that especially with a small party, working together will mean more than having 3 strong characters that don't complement each other.
By the way Aioran, If I'm not mistaken you gave me advice for a travel/luck cleric I am using in another campaign. I DON'T regret your advice, and my DM for THAT game allowed a guided weapon. Happy as a clam, and so is my party with the re-roll abilities.
I am assuming that you are talking to me, but I don't remember that advice. However, I am happy your are enjoying it. It certainly sounds like something I would play. There was a changling cleric of the traveller I played years ago, with the travel and trickery domains.
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Personally I would do some kind of monk because I enjoy them and they are harder to pull off the fewer points you have. Throwing paladin in there as was suggested would make your saves insane. If the game is really going to be hard though and you only have three players then the role selection collaboration that was suggested would probably be your best bet.
Here are my thoughts on the two classes in your title.
Alchemists are very versatile with their ranged attacks, spells (extracts), and transformation (mutagens). High intelligence, dexterity, strength, and constitution would allow your character to be good at ranged and melee just because of your class features. Start out by throwing a couple bombs, hulk out to wreck things in melee, then after the fight you could toss a couple heals around. Definately a solid choice in my opinion.
Bards are good support characters who usually don't do high amounts of damage because of attribute requirements. However, with that kind of point buy system you could use your natural class features for combat support, skill useage, & social skills then focus your feats on combat. Since intelligence is good for skills for a bard the archery route would be pretty decent with the Focused Shot feat from APG 160, where you can add int modifier to your damage rolls. Even a melee route would work if you tossed an 16 or 18 into strength.
Overall I'd say the bard would be a better choice if you want to cover out of combat situations well, but in combat the alchemist might be more versatile. I don't have play experience with either right now though.
I would recommend avoiding the Druid Shaman archetypes altogether, unless the game is only going to last until level 7. The Shaman archetypes give you huge size Wild Shape at level 6, whereas it is normally level 8. The drawback is you won't qualify for Large elemental shape until level 12, or Huge Elemental shape until level 14. The other drawback is you can't Wild Shape at all until level 6, but a normal druid can go bird form or fish form at level 4 and small earth elemental form at level 6. (burrow speed = get out of combat free if things go really bad)
The Shaman archetypes sacrifice alot of versatility to get the huge Wild Shape a few levels earlier, but you will feel that sacrifice starting at level 4 and for a good majority of your tree-hugging career....
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By the way Aioran, If I'm not mistaken you gave me advice for a travel/luck cleric I am using in another campaign. I DON'T regret your advice, and my DM for THAT game allowed a guided weapon. Happy as a clam, and so is my party with the re-roll abilities.
Oh I wondered what happened with that. Good to hear it worked out for you and your group! :>
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I'd like to echo the monk bit, but also I'd consider if you're going to have a full divine and a full caster go with a splash of monk, with all your attributes it should be easy enough to toss a trait in to make disable device a class skill, then you could do everything a monk does (one lvl behind) and also prevent traps.
50pts
I'd go like this
str- 12
dex- 17(19)
con- 16
int- 16
wis- 17(19)
cha- 12
for a race I'd pick an aasimar personally one of the variants like Garuda
your two starting feats would be dodge and weapon finesse
You'd start off with a 19ac and a +3/+3 on weapon finesse.
for skills
acrobatics
stealth
perception
disable device
sense motive
swim
climb
your saves would of course be good at 5/6/6 and climbing...
when you splash a lvl or rogue, you'll get trapfinding and backstab (but with three may not come into play as much) or you could go to two and get quick stealth...
I would actually still say a bard is a good choice...just not a base bard. Personally, I'm a fan of Sound Striker and Dawnflower Dervish. <_<
Also, small parties love Summoners. Master Summoner just laughs at "we only have 3", and even normal Summoners get effectively 2 actions to everyone else's 1.
I would actually advise staying away from "pure" specialists, although you certainly can do it with 3 of you (I'm used to playing with only 2). But, for example, if you were looking at being a melee character, go ranger rather than fighter and you're also a skillmonkey.
If you want to be horrible to your DM? Talk with the other players and go Master Summoner/Druid/Bard (in this case do go normal bard, or rather one that keeps the strong party buffing...you may only have 3 party members, but the summons, the summons!!!). And everyone get leadership. Because why have a party when you can have an army? ^_-
I would actually still say a bard is a good choice...just not a base bard. Personally, I'm a fan of Sound Striker and Dawnflower Dervish. <_<
Also, small parties love Summoners. Master Summoner just laughs at "we only have 3", and even normal Summoners get effectively 2 actions to everyone else's 1.
I would actually advise staying away from "pure" specialists, although you certainly can do it with 3 of you (I'm used to playing with only 2). But, for example, if you were looking at being a melee character, go ranger rather than fighter and you're also a skillmonkey.
If you want to be horrible to your DM? Talk with the other players and go Master Summoner/Druid/Bard (in this case do go normal bard...you may only have 3 party members, but the summons, the summons!!!). And everyone get leadership. Because why have a party when you can have an army? ^_-
The DM/GM might not allow some of those? And if they are relative newbies to Pathfinder, Summoners and the Leadership feat might cause more problems than they fix.
I'm playing in a game with a 3-character-party with "epicly" scaled encounters right now, and our party syncs up pretty nice. We have:
- An elf illusionist (full build to be Wizard 13/Master Specialist 4/Magical Trickster 3)
- A human Battle Oracle (no multiclassing)
- A thri-kreen Dervish (Fighter(Two-Weapon Warrior Archetype) 6/Monk(Sohei Archetype) 2/Dervish 10 plus 2 Thri-Kreen racial HD)
We're playing with 3.5 material available, as you can see, but still... Oracle is a pretty good class for a 3-person party! We're level 5 right now, and honestly the Oracle is doing the majority of our melee damage (he has a pretty high STR score!), while the thri-kreen has crazy a high AC. The wizard brings some pretty killer damage with Scorching Rays, too (the illusions bit will come into play more a bit later, once the necessary feats, class abilities, etc are all on the character).
All in all, though, yeah; that's more or less the formula I'd suggest for a 3 person party; Oracle or Cleric + Wizard or Sorcerer + someone to own your solid late-game melee damage. The Battle Oracle kills it, providing some really amazing damage, while still being able to heal and provide full spellcasting; I feel like that character is what "seals" our ability to function as such a small party, as he fills two roles for us perfectly.
The DM/GM might not allow some of those? And if they are relative newbies to Pathfinder, Summoners and the Leadership feat might cause more problems than they fix.
Possibly - obviously if not, then don't take them, but without such guidelines mentioned I figured they were worth suggesting.
And if the whole groups is new, no, you wouldn't want to do that, but with the GM giving them 50 point buy it seemed they were likely more experienced and only the OP was relatively new (and was interested in playing the bard, which wouldn't be any different than a bard in a smaller party for that player, just more effective for the group as a whole as it gets larger.
Possibly - obviously if not, then don't take them, but without such guidelines mentioned I figured they were worth suggesting.
And if the whole groups is new, no, you wouldn't want to do that, but with the GM giving them 50 point buy it seemed they were likely more experienced and only the OP was relatively new (and was interested in playing the bard, which wouldn't be any different than a bard in a smaller party for that player, just more effective for the group as a whole as it gets larger.
True.
50 P(oint)B(uy) does help M(ulti-)A(bilities)D(ependent) classes and even S(ingle)A(bility)D(ependent) ones.
Thank you all and thank god for this forum, guys. Really appreciative -- any other input or revelations still appreciated, too!
UPDATE: Looks like one of us is going to be a dwarven wizard, and the other player is going to be a tank of some sort -- If the tank decides a different role I may go with a monk to play that part... It occurs to me at this point that I'm not going to be able to pull off a druid, the lesser reason being roleplaying (I am very civ. over nature so it's hard to throw that switch) and the greater obstacle of being relatively new to pathfinder -- the guides don't sugarcoat that druids are a complicated class, and I really don't think I can handle all the summons or even change-forms without bogging the game down.
For the same reason I can't do familiars... I won't roleplay "pets" well, and as cool as they are to me it's like doubling up on characters and I'm not ready to do that yet. Since the party has a tank and an Arcane that scraps my alchemist most likely (more roles need to be filled and blasting should be covered)... this is SO damn heavy! But as people have said maybe it makes best sense if we have a wizard and a beater to be something divine... I don't want to do Paladin (I find codes of conduct stifling) and while I could probably do cleric... I'm playing a cleric in my other campaign!
I'm going to pore over everything everyone has said one more time carefully and meditate on it. Am I the only one that starts getting shell-shocked with all these options!?
Hitting the guide to the guides also as advised, and mulling over everything discussed above.
Thanks again for everything!
Oracle is an option if you plan to fill the divine role.... Oracles are also lower maintenance to play than clerics are. Because you can't pick and choose spells every day of adventuring, you just have a short list of what you can cast and that's that!
If you decide to go cleric, the nice part of getting 2 domains is that you can have 5 clerics and each one could have vastly different play styles. Clerics can also make fantastic melee if they focus on the self-only buff spells, and then couple those with a 3/4 BAB along with combat feats and combat-based domain powers.
UMD is the ultimate skill to receive via a Headband of Vast Intellect. If you have the money for it, get all three members of the party equipped with +2 Headbands that give them full UMD ranks.
If they are crafted, they have any skill you choose. If you find them as random loot, they default to a random knowledge skill.
This intricate gold headband is decorated with several small blue and deep purple gemstones. The headband grants the wearer an enhancement bonus to Intelligence of +2, +4, or +6. Treat this as a temporary ability bonus for the first 24 hours the headband is worn. A headband of vast intelligence has one skill associated with it per +2 bonus it grants. After being worn for 24 hours, the headband grants a number of skill ranks in those skills equal to the wearer's total Hit Dice. These ranks do not stack with the ranks a creature already possesses. These skills are chosen when the headband is created. If no skill is listed, the headband is assumed to grant skill ranks in randomly determined Knowledge skills.
With the enormous point buy, you're going to have several stats that give a high bonus. What I think you should do is try to get them to apply to as much as possible. With the low amount of people, I think going for some kind of half-caster character is also a good idea, or a combat character that still has a few spellcasting tricks.
For example:
Inquisitors may add Wisdom to Initiative at level 2.
Monks may add Wisdom to AC at level 1.
Both are classes that benefit greatly from a high point buy.
Doing a Monk1/InquisitorX or MonkX/Inq2 might be good. If Monk1/InqX, note that Inquisitors get high Intimidate easily - stack on Intimidating Prowess and maxed Intimidate ranks, dazzling display, cornugon smash and others, you can be literally terrifying. And that single level of monk means you can go completely unarmored up to decently high level, that you can attack even if unarmed, and something like Punishing Kick that can be applied on any attack.
With a 50 point buy and Human you can do something like: Str 20/Dex14/Con16/Int10/Wis18/Cha11. That's SICK! :D
EDIT: When Cornugon Smash becomes available, at level 9, you're looking at an intimidate modifier of 9+3(class)+5(str)+4(inq) = +21 before taking items into account.
If you get the Enforcer feat, you could at any time do an unarmed attack instead of your normal one to deal nonlethal damage and get an extra intimidate attempt, starting at level one.